This week the GB News host and former UKIP leader said he was launching a campaign for a public referendum on the UK’s net zero policies, under the slogan “Vote Power, Not Poverty”.
He repeats familiar talking points from public figures blocking climate action, including the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of MPs, who argue that the war in Ukraine means the UK should extract more fossil fuels and overturn its moratorium on fracking. Farage went further – arguing for coal extraction at the proposed mine in Cumbria.
Farage, who has a long record of rejecting climate science, is running the referendum campaign with Richard Tice, a millionaire property developer who bankrolled campaigns for the UK to leave the European Union. “Vote Power, Not Poverty” has received widespread media coverage, especially in Brexit-supporting outlets like the Daily Mail.
Farage has likened his net zero campaign to his push for Brexit and clearly hopes to repeat the populist tactics used ahead of the 2016 EU referendum. DeSmog has verified that the “Vote Power, Not Poverty” Twitter account is the old Brexiteer “Leave Means Leave” Twitter account with a new name.
…
Insulate Britain protests: Police charge 74 activists
Police have charged 74 people over Insulate Britain protests.
The charges relate to demonstrations at the Port of Dover and the Dartford Crossing, which caused heavy traffic tailbacks, in September and October.
There are a total of 104 charges, 73 for public nuisance, 29 for obstruction and two for criminal damage, a further 19 people who were arrested were released without charge.
Crawley Magistrates’ Court will begin hearing the charges from April.
[It is difficult to take only quote a small section of this article since it is so short.]
IPCC Report Calls Out ‘Vested Interests’ Delaying Climate Action
The UN’s expert climate science organization has criticised the “vested interests” obstructing efforts to cut emissions for the first time this week.
The world’s leading climate scientists warned of the “irreversible” impacts of global warming in the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), describing the window of opportunity to act as “brief and rapidly closing”.
The review, which focuses on adaptation, said that despite scientific certainty around human-caused climate change, “vested economic and political interests” were delaying efforts to tackle it.
These have “generated rhetoric and misinformation that undermines climate science and disregards risk and urgency”, it noted, resulting in “public misperception of climate risks and polarised public support for climate actions”.
…
Anti-Net Zero MP Steve ‘number two’ Baker Took £5k From Chair of Climate Science Denial Group
A Tory MP leading a backbench revolt against climate action recently received £5,000 from the chair of the UK’s most prominent climate science denial group.
Steve Baker, a former Brexit minister, insists that his Net Zero Scrutiny Group (NZSG) of MPs accepts climate science and is only concerned about the cost and efficacy of the UK’s 2050 net zero target.
But the parliamentary register of interests shows that Baker received £5,000 from Neil Record, a Tory Party donor and chairman of both the climate science-denying Global Warming Policy Forum and the Institute of Economic Affairs think tank, which has received funding from oil giant BP, and has a record of opposing government climate policies.
The Forum, which rebranded as Net Zero Watch in October, is the campaigning wing of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which Baker joined as an unpaid trustee last year.
GWPF-founder Lord Nigel Lawson, who is also a board member of the Forum/Net Zero Watch, recently wrote that “global warming is not a problem”.
…
Tens of thousands take part in climate protests across France
Tens of thousands of people protested across France on Saturday to call for more attention to the climate crisis in the runup to the presidential election next month.
“Look up,” read one message in giant orange letters demonstrators held up in Paris, urging politicians to make protecting the planet a priority.
The sign was a nod to Netflix hit Don’t Look Up, in which astronomers who discover a comet will wipe out the Earth try in vain to get politicians to take the threat seriously. “When are we going to talk about it?” read another sign.
The climate crisis took up only 1.5% of talking points in media coverage of the election campaign from 28 February to 6 March, a recent survey by climate justice NGOs has found.
…